With West teammates Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant staging the expected pre-All-Star love fest Friday, the hometown Suns threw themselves into the breach, imploding, as if on cue.

With the Suns reportedly on the verge of firing Coach Terry Porter, trading Amare Stoudemire, or both, Stoudemire and Shaq suggested it's all true.

It was like the 2004 game in Los Angeles, on the heels of the Lakers' announcement about cutting off extension talks with Phil Jackson and Bryant's I-don't-care reaction, giving everyone a chance to be Lakers Writers for a Day.

The Suns are a disappointment, if only to themselves. Everyone else wrote them off after last season's trade for O'Neal, who fit into their wide-open offense as well as he figured to.

Now, in a shocker, Suns owner Bob Sarver, who pushed to get O'Neal, looks intent on breaking up his team, not by trading Shaq, who will be 37 in about three weeks, or Steve Nash, 35, but Stoudemire, who's 26.

We have some good peices, but with a jackass coach and players who arent meshing together, the Suns are not fun to watch or cheer for anymore. Kerr is too much of an idiot and too stuck on Nash(and I agree that the Suns would bomb without Nash running the offense, but he is getting too old and will only be good on a championship contender now) to want to trade him. He wont trade the old folks for some absurd reason, and he doesnt understand the team just needs to start over.